the daughter of Dymas (Hom. Il. ii., 718), or of Cisseus (Eurip.), or of the River Sangarius and Metope (Apollodor. iii., 12, 5), was the second wife of Priam, and had by him nineteen sons and a great number of daughters. Of the sons, the most celebrated were Hector, Paris, Deiphobus, Helenus, Polydorus, Troilus; and of the daughters, Polyxena, Cassandra, Creüssa, and Laodice. When Hecuba was pregnant of Paris, she dreamed that she had brought into the world a burning torch, which reduced her husband's palace and all Troy to ashes. This dream was interpreted to mean that the son she should bring into the world would prove the destruction of his country. To avoid this, she exposed Paris as soon as he was born; but he was saved by shepherds, and afterwards acknowledged by his parents. During the Trojan War she witnessed the death of nearly all her children, and at last saw her husband murdered before her eyes. (Virg. Æn. ii.) When Troy was taken, Hecuba fell to the lot of Ulysses. They set sail and landed in the Thracian Chersonesus, where Hecuba learned that her son Polyporus had been murdered by Polymnestor, the ancient friend of the Trojans, to whom Priam had sent him. She proceeded with some Trojan women to the house of Polymnestor, put to death two of his sons, and tore out his own eyes. Polymnestor foretold to her that she would be changed into a she-dog, and would leap into the sea at Cynossema. The tradition further says, that under this form she ran for a time howling through Thrace, till she was at length stoned to death by the inhabitants.